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My wonderful new employer gave us two days of new-hire training, which included at least two anti-union lessons and how much we're a company-family and how important their veteran-hiring polices are.

After three weeks one veteran needs time off for a VA hospital visit. Being a government agency they only have service during our regular hours. And yet our BS "company-family" might turn down this veteran's medical need for a half day off because we're on new-hire 90 Day probation. So if he's turned down and calls out, will they fire him? I can tell you my interviews will be sick days.

I get the distinct impression this company does not want to hire the best but the most obedient and most willing to take abuse rather than the best and brightest. God, get me out of here!

It was a bigger mess than I thought. Yesterday's Tomorrows looked fine on an e-reader on the computer, but when I bought that tablet I discovered it was really messed up in MobiSystems' Universal Book Reader (UB Reader). Not only was the table of contents hosed, but there were no indents on paragraph beginnings, and it was an ugly sans serif font rather than the Gentium Book Basic in the printed volumes and HTML (at least on a computer with that font installed, if not it falls back to Times New Roman).

It was, of course, from my own ignorance, both of e-books in general and Calibre in particular. I never had any interest in e-books, because you paid for something you didn't own. If I buy a book I can give it away or sell it, it's a physical thing. Not so with e-books, and the e-books usually cost as much as the paperback.

But since I was giving books away I needed to learn about them. I wish I'd bought a tablet a long time ago. At any rate, I finally got all of them straightened out. At least, I think I have, except I can'tseem to get the cover to show in the Kindle version of Mars, Ho!, and I'm still checking out the epubs in the Nook app.

There's still a few minor annoyances in Yesterday's Tomorrows. Images that are supposed to fill the page don't on a tablet. I experimented with changing the page size to 12x20 in Open Office and scaling the images, but it came out the same. Maybe I need to raise the resolution?

Reading the HTML on a phone gives no serifs. It appears that Android devices are almost devoid of fonts, from what I've googled about it. Time Magazine seems to somehow have a Times font. I'll get it eventually.

Meanwhile, I documented the steps needed with Calibre. I'll need it, since I likely won't be using that program until next year when I finish Voyage to Earth and Other Stories.

Posted July 21, Rejected around Aug 1

      ScienceDaily reports on a unique project:

For the first time ever, individuals will have the opportunity to send their own personal message and/or data into space via microchip. The project entitled "Voices of Humanity" is the creation of the Santa Barbara-based team of UCSB Physics Professor Phil Lubin, Ph.D. and Travis Brashears, an engineering physics major at U.C. Berkeley. Philip Lubin, a professor in physics at the University of California Santa Barbara, is the leading scientist on the endeavor. With his student Brashears who is working at the UCSB Physics Department this summer and went to San Marcos High School, they have launched a Kickstarter campaign called Voices of Humanity. They are inviting individuals to join them in a journey that will take their personal data to the stars via directed energy propulsion.

      The purpose of the campaign is to collect data of the dreams, visions, images, movies, DNA, and literal voices of all of humanity, place them on a Humanity Chip, download them onto their wafer scale spacecraft, and then launch them in a series of increasingly sophisticated missions into outer space.

      From the Kickstarter project page:

Once we reach our stretch goal of $100,000, we will be able to build a sophisticated ground-based laser and robotic telescope that allows your data to be optionally transmitted via laser to the target of your choice in space. We will then be able to "beam you up" by encoding and sending your data to the stars so you will travel at the speed of light into the universe. In both cases, we will be able to "back up humanity", using the universe as our "cloud" with your images, pictures, text, tweets, video, and DNA! Your data will live forever in the universe. You will be immortalized.

      [...]

      Voices of Humanity is brought to you by the same people that are working on the recently announced laser propelled, first interstellar missions through the DE-STAR project at University of California Santa Barbara and the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) funded project Phase I DEEP-IN and Phase II DEIS programs. Professor Philip Lubin is the leading scientist on all of these projects and is a professor at UC Santa Barbara. Travis Brashears has worked with Prof. Lubin on all of these projects and is an Engineering Physics major at UC Berkeley.

      (This project should not be confused with the similarly-named project at CCI)

Submitted July 20, REJECTED around Aug 1

      As many have anticipated, Turkish president Erdogan's retaliation for the failed 15 July coup. Including Turkish university staff. Nature reports:

More than a thousand Turkish university staff have been ordered to resign their faculty leadership positions -- and others expect to be sacked -- in the aftermath of the country's failed coup on 15 July.

      As president Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to clamp down on political opposition, the Turkish Council of Higher Education (YOK) has called for all 1,577 of the country's university deans -- the staff that head up each institution's various academic faculties -- to leave their posts.

      Many of the deans may ultimately be re-appointed, but researchers say the move is designed to ensure that Erdogan maintains tight political control over the education sector, following earlier purges of the country's military, judiciary and police. And in what amounts to a temporary international travel ban for Turkish scholars, all vacations at universities have also been cancelled, and academics abroad for work and holidays have been told to return.

      Additionally, the purge has been extended to Turkey's schools where 15000 schoolteachers have been suspended and another 20000 have lost their teaching licenses. The article continues:

University associations oustide Turkey were quick to criticize the measures. On 19 July, the European University Association (EUA), in Brussels, issued a statement condemning the news of the university deans' forced resignations. "EUA calls on all European governments, universities and scholars to speak out against these developments and to support democracy in Turkey, including institutional autonomy and academic freedom for scholars and students," said its president, Rolf Tarrach.

      "We are all stunned by the deep and seemingly ruthless attacks on academic freedom by the Turkish government," said Horst Hippler, president of the German Rectors Conference, an association of Germany's state-recognized universities.

According to the relevant Wikipedia article, around 6 billion people in the world identify with one of the 5 major religious groups in the world. Another couple hundred million identify with "medium sized religions". That's by far the majority of the world's population who are engaged in some form in organized religion and the common interpretations of spirituality.

I was born in the late 1980's, in the UK, my formal education spanned the 1990's and early 2000's. Unlike most who frequent this site, I never went into formal higher education beyond day releases arranged by my employer at the time.

Older generations of the family, parents and grandparents, have never displayed or discussed any religious affiliation. One of my grandparents was by all appearances an atheist. Strongly against religion being taught in school, in any form. Passing away before I was even a teenager, never had the opportunity to discuss the nuances of the anti-religion disposition.

With that, religion never being discussed in the home, the contrast to that with my state-sponsored education, in the 1990's especially, gives me pause for thought. There were christian prayers and hymns every day in my primary education. The only reason possible for not taking part in that was being one of the few Muslims or Hindus in the school. Everyone else had to participate. The only time religion was mentioned at home was "if you're asked what religion you are, you're C of E" ... I had no idea what that meant at the time, just knew what i was told to say if the question ever came up. As a child, i was never introduced to the idea you could not have a religious affiliation. We're all Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs of some stripe or other...

Both my parents, and my mother's parents were very concerned about the social isolation and stigma resulting from not publicly identifying with the established religion. I was going to be christened to ensure I would have the ability to get married.

Now times have apparently changed since then, and I doubt primary education in mainstream state schools have hymns and prayers still. In hindsight, to me it's quite surprising it was still the standard in the 1990's. There was numerous attempts made to indoctrinate the youngest and most impressionable into Christianity, sponsored by the state, there was non way to opt-out of this. It was very much part of the curriculum. It continued to a lesser extent in high-school, everyone got given a bible for some reason, although I do not recall prayers and hymns.

I do believe in a spiritual side of life, my experiences make it impossible to deny. However, that blending organized religion, faith and education, especially when state-sponsored for the general population is very troubling to me.

Organized religion is often just a tool for control, and what better time to introduce people to that than in their formative years, in a formal authoritative institution in which they have to attend continuously for years, but have little to no agency within. This kind of education does not encourage actual learning.... Text books, like the bible are gospel. Critical thinking and comprehension get in the way of rote memorization of various elements of propaganda, especially in the social sciences. Religion and formal education institutes seem primarily designed to give us a framework for our worldview to be confined within, not to expand out from, in the hopes of avoiding the difficult questions that might arise.

The psychological prison needs to be just big enough that we can't see all the bars at the same time.

Has anyone else had similar experiences of an apathetic family and a proactive state in religious indoctrination?

Does anyone have a news source they follow for American news that is relatively unbiased?
I go to the CBC and BBC and to CNN for breaking news (not for unbiased news)...

Buehler?

Okay, haven't written here for a while, got some time and something on my chest to ask: something that has been bugging me since it happened. This gun-toting 'Republic' of 'Freedom Fighters, Freedom Fries and Freedom Pies' seems to have accepted the dropping of democracy and the rise of blatant corruption. So here goes...

Are Americans apathetic?
Hillary stole money and support from Sanders, and got away with it: her friend in the DNC shuffles money away from Sanders, then says "No way!" when Sanders says it's happening. Corrupt!!!

Speaking of corruption, Hillary then WITHOUT ANY PRETENSE OR UNDER-THE-TABLENESS hires the corrupt thief and liar. Corrupt!!!

And Americans say......
Americans do.......

What what what?

Why aren't Americans in the street protesting???

1. Hillary has shown herself to be corrupt by condoning corruption in people under her and around her.
2. She blatantly reinforces and raises to a higher level, those who acted in a corrupt manner for her benefit.
3. She seems to be blowing Sanders off: rumours of her agreeing to do things he wants to shut him up, but only in the interim... then she will do what she wants after.
4. She's against the TPP, but not really and will support it once elected.
5. ...................

I know 3,4,and 5 are how politicians work, but 1 and 2 should have Americans screaming bloody Jihad or something.
Where are the protests?
Where are the cries of "CORRUPTION, CORRUPTION, CORRUPTION"?

Why are some Americans still supporting her?

I am Canadian and cannot vote in this US election, but I liked Sanders: now after Sanders giving in for "Let's beat Trump", if i WAS American, I think i'd be voting for Jill Stein who i know nothing about except for the slogan "Jill not Hill" or whatever.
Anything but Billary 'Corruption' Clinton.

Do you go quietly into this nightmare? Is everyone too busy playing Pokemon Go to protest?? WTF???

Damn, i'd vote Trump before Shillary.

Why is the U.S. so quiet about this blatant corruption???? Throw her tea into the harbour, i say!!!

clone system(s) with various built-in games, this time featuring titles from the existing Sega Mega Drive library, as well as some original titles

http://japanese.engadget.com/2016/07/27/2-25/

Los Angeles Gang Tour Puts A Twist On Drive-Bys

2010 article I found for crutchy on IRC.

Vopt (pronounced 'vee-opt') is a commercial disk defragmentation utility for
the Windows platform which was first released in the early 1980s. It has
supported all versions of Microsoft Windows ever released, including MS-DOS!

Its author, Howard Barry Emerson, passed away on Feb 2016 at the age of 75.

Emerson declared in his will that Vopt should become available for all users
in the event of his death. As per his will, Vopt is now offered as a free
download at its homepage. There you will find listed the registration file for
the program which you can copy to the program installation folder on Windows
to make it fully functional.

Vopt homepage: http://www.vopt.com/index.html

 
=============================================================================

A farewell tune to Mr. Emerson from me ...cheers and thanks for the memories:

Gerry & The Pacemakers - You'll Never Walk Alone
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctbNzW9gc_A>

 
=============================================================================

A text file from my computer archives:

Best Windows 7 Defrag App -- Windows 7 Forums [June 2010]
<http://www.sevenforums.com/software/92295-best-windows-7-defrag-app.html>

 
There is always a lot of controversy when it comes to disk defragmentation
tools. Some people believe that you do not need a third-party disk
defragmentation tool. Others are loyal to a specific program. Well, here's my
thoughts. I will even tell you why.

I know that a lot of you are huge fans of free programs but this is one case
in which I would recommend making an exception...

For regular 'home' users all defragmenters do the same good job... with one
exception: Vopt is the only one capable of optimizing start-up files
INCLUDING realigning the pagefile. To do this the right way, a little bit of
thinking is required.

Some say the size of your pagefile is depending on your installed RAM. Wrong.
It depends on your daily work. For example:

The "commit charge" of Designers working with Photoshop day in day out
is WAY higher than for the average guy who plays some games - no matter how
much RAM is installed.

To find your "personal" pagefile size, use the computer as you normally would.
After a few hours, open your Task Manager (CTRL-ALT-DEL) and go to the
Performance tab and check the "commit charge"

Performance
Total: RAM currently used
Limit: Physical RAM + current pagefile
Peak: Most RAM used today (well... peak)

As you can see, the difference is quite noticeable. You can reduce the size of
your pagefile. Smaller pagefile = better performance.

Now press Win+Pause -> Advanced tab -> Performance -> Click Settings
-> Advanced tab -> Virtual Memory -> "Change"

By default "System managed size" is checked. Now Windows
tends to increase and decrease the filesize whenever it's bored, causing your
pagefile to split into fragments which then causes performance loss.

To optimize this, check "Custom size" and lock the file by entering YOUR
personal value TWICE. Don't forget to click on "Set" afterward. Nowadays a
value of 512MB is just fine. Don't go lower.

If you have, for example, 1GB of physical RAM and your "Peak" was 695MB
(729,000 KB) set it to 512MB or 768MB

Windows will ask you to reboot your computer once you accept all changes;
Do it.

Finally, run Vopt and run the Clean Tasks first to get rid of junk files.
Select the Drive with your new pagefile (usually drive letter C),
click "Defragmenting" -> "Defrag pagefile"

The clever method - and Vopt is the ONLY one who does it:
Vopt moves the complete pagefile to the very middle of your HDD. Why? Because
the middle or the center is the Idle-point for the HDD's shuttle. This ensures
the LOWEST access time possible.

Furthermore, Vopt overrides loading AutoStart and some Core Applications
during the next boot. Otherwise you couldn't access and/or move them. Sounds
logical, right? I thought so too

This procedure is what I've been doing FIRST on a fresh system for the past 8
years.